Zhuhai, a city of 2.4 million in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, is not what you might picture a city at the heart of the world’s most populous area to be. With 708 urban parks, tree-lined waterfront promenades, and a connection between sea and mountain, Zhuhai is a tourism destination known as a forest city.
Zhuhai wasn’t always so leafy. At the end of 2014, the Central Government of China issued an edict promoting what it described as ‘sponge cities’. In 30 national pilots, with 1.2–1.8 billion RMB in support, China pushed urban design developed to prevent flooding.
A sponge city, according to Chinese guidelines, is one that has transformed hard surfaces, such as roads and pavements, into permeable surfaces that can absorb, seep, purify and store water, and later release stored water for use. In other parts of the world, similar infrastructure projects are known as low-impact development, blue-green infrastructure or water sensitive urban design. But only China has implemented them at a city-wide scale.
